Illustration by Rania Abdallah
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I have seen my name on a lot of plates. Not a place card at a table set for a dinner I was expected to enjoy. But a small white plate set apart from the rest, sometimes on a separate table, sometimes at the end of a buffet line, with a card identifying its contents and, occasionally, its intended recipient. My name. My allergy. My medical information, offered to the room as a logistical solution.
I have a bell pepper allergy. I have disclosed it dozens of times over the years. The disclosure ritual is familiar: I mention it during registration or by e-mail, and a note is made.
At conferences, a card is tucked into my name badge holder, behind my name tag — invisible to others, but I know it is there. My professional identity on the front. My medical condition beneath.
At fancy events, I am given a card to present to the server when they approach my table, or worse, they ask, “Who has the allergy at this table?” and announce my difference to everyone seated. And then, at some point a plate appears. Set aside. Marked. Different from everyone else’s. By the time of arrival, I’ve held everyone up who has politely waited, so I encourage them to go ahead and eat before their meals get cold.
Here is what that plate communicates every time: You are here, but not entirely. We have made a place for you at the edge of the table. Your needs have been noted, managed and separated from the experience. You are welcome, with an asterisk.
I have also seen the forlorn plates that were never claimed. Someone’s name, outing them. Someone’s allergy or sensitivity. Sitting on a side table as the event moved on around them, announcing a medical condition to anyone who walked past. I used to wonder about those people — whether they left early or ate nothing, simply unable to face retrieving a plate with their name on it from across a room full of colleagues.
Last year, I attended a fundraiser for the Women’s Law Association of Ontario. I disclosed my bell pepper allergy when I purchased my ticket, the way I always do, bracing for it. It did not come. Instead, the caterer removed bell peppers from the entire menu. Every appetizer. Every vegetable tray. Every dish.
Not one guest ate bell peppers that night. And not one guest knew why.
Dinner parties are a way to bring people together in a world that pulls us apart
I stood at the buffet, moved from dish to dish and ate everything I wanted. I did not have to squint at a small card listing ingredients. I did not have to ask a server. I did not have to locate my plate at the edge of a table. I simply ate. The food was extraordinary. And for the first time in my memory, I was not performing the management of my own inclusion. I was just there.
Stunned is the right word. I kept waiting for the moment I would have to stop — to check, to navigate. It did not come. I ate everything. I talked to people. I felt, with a clarity I did not expect, what it means to simply belong to a room.
This is the difference between accommodation and inclusion. Accommodation says: We have noted your needs and made a separate provision for them. Inclusion says: We have built this so that your needs are already met before you arrive. Accommodation requires you to identify yourself, to disclose and to retrieve your marked plate from across the room. Inclusion requires nothing from you except your presence.
The labelled plate is not cruel. The people who prepare it are trying to help and I have always been grateful for that. But it announces a difference in a room where most people are not thinking about difference at all. It makes visible the work of being included, which is the work that true inclusion is meant to make invisible. When you redesign the menu so everyone eats the same food, you are not accommodating one person. You are building a room designed for everyone.
More than three million Canadians live with food allergies. But food restrictions extend well beyond allergies. For Muslims observing halal, Jews keeping kosher, Hindus avoiding beef, vegans and people managing celiac disease or diabetes, every buffet line is a navigation exercise. We are not a niche — we are a significant portion of every room, managing quietly, eating before we arrive, filling a plate with whatever seems safe, carrying it to a corner and calling it enough.
That evening, I did not do any of those things. I stayed. I ate. I networked without the low hum of vigilance that usually runs beneath every event. I felt the lightness of not having to explain myself — not because my allergy had disappeared, but because the room had been built as though it had always known I was coming.
That is what inclusion actually feels like. Not a special plate. Not a card with your name on it. Not a note made, managed and set aside.
Just the food, available to everyone and no one knowing or caring why.
Bliss.
Lorin MacDonald lives in Toronto.